Grim war story is a tale of success

United States Army Captain Scotty Smiley delivers the keynote address Thursday November 8 at the USAA 2012 Veterans Day Ceremony. Smiley is the Army's first blind active duty officer as well as its first blind company commander. Smiley lost his sight in April of 2005 when a suicide car bomber blew himself up in front of Smiley's Stryker vehicle.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

Kory Brunson sings Thursday November 8, 2012 during the USAA 2012 Veterans Day Ceremony. The event was held to thank and honor veterans of war including Vietnam veterans and their families.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

Kory Brunson sings Thursday November 8, 2012 during the USAA 2012 Veterans Day Ceremony. The event was held to thank and honor veterans of war including Vietnam veterans and their families.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

Kory Brunson sings Thursday November 8, 2012 during the USAA 2012 Veterans Day Ceremony. The event was held to thank and honor veterans of war including Vietnam veterans and their families.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

Michael J. Durant speaks Thursday November 7, 2013 during a ceremony at USAA celebrating the observance of Veteran's Day. Durant was the event's keynote speaker. Durant was a pilot in a Blackhawk helicopter that crashed in Somalia in 1993 that was the subject of the movie and book "Black Hawk Down." Veteran's Day is November 11.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy Cadet Singers perform Thursday November 8 during the USAA 2012 Veterans Day Ceremony. The ceremony honored all veterans including those of the Vietnam War and their families.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mick Kicklighter (left) and retired Army Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya (right) present a commemorative flag honoring the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War and its veterans Thursday November 8 during the USAA 2012 Veterans Day Ceremony.

When Capt. Scotty Smiley stood before 500 people Thursday, they gave him a standing ovation before he said a single word.

As the Army's first blind officer on active duty, he instantly earns respect and admiration.

But his recovery from an April 6, 2005, suicide car bombing and return to service is a tale of success that includes an agonizing back story.

Like other times in his life where things went sideways, there are moments of doubt and even anger.

“There are some memories that day that I definitely wish I don't have, but I think the more important thing to say is it's those memories that enable us to grow, if we can get past them, if we can focus on getting past them,” said Smiley, 32, of Spokane, Wash.

A West Point graduate, he gave the keynote speech for USAA's annual Veterans Day tribute at the company's headquarters.

For USAA CEO Joe Robles, a retired Army two-star general and Vietnam veteran, Veterans Day is a time “where I can salute my fellow veterans, talk to them about something that we can share some commonality about — the people that we've known, the people who passed, the people who did miraculous things, folks like Capt. Smiley there who are truly an inspiration to all veterans.”

Smiley's 10-minute speech was a talk of brushes with defeat spliced with humor and a simple theme — never quit.

There was the day he faltered at the start of his freshman year at West Point. As a new cadet, a rank he joked was “below the commandant's dog,” Smiley had to deliver laundry to upperclassmen. Confused, he had a meltdown when confronted by a sergeant.

“I just began to weep and cry, and as pathetic as it might sound, I was broken, and after she picked her jaw off the ground in shock and awe she told me to go back to my room. She told me to figure out if this is where I wanted to be,” he told the crowd.

Smiley thought of the academy's values — duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and social courage. He wondered if they were his values and in time settled the issue by staying.

A couple of years later he was a young officer in Mosul during the Iraqi rebellion. Proud of the work he and his soldiers did, Smiley also had setbacks.

Troops were lost, one of them his company commander who was killed four days before Christmas in a mess hall bombing. Others were wounded that year.

Five months passed. One day, Smiley saw a car that didn't look quite right. The rear was lower than the front, a tell-tale sign of a car bomb. The driver was alone.

“So I yelled at the man, ‘Get out of your vehicle!'” he told the audience. “He looked over his left shoulder, raised his hand and shook his head no, and put his hand back on the steering wheel.”

Even now, Smiley can see the man's face, his neatly trimmed beard and his long-sleeved gray shirt. The car was an Opel, one of the most common vehicles in Iraq.

“That was the day that changed my life forever,” he said, when asked why he remembered the man and the scene so well.

As he recovered, Smiley grew angry and depressed. He was in denial about being blind until a Purple Heart ceremony, where his brother read the Army citation.

“One of my best friends asked me to say a prayer and I said no. ‘I don't know how to pray and I don't know God,'” Smiley, a Christian, told his friend.

“That was a sign to everyone in the room that ... I was not doing well, that I was going into a dark hole, a dark place.”

The climb out led to him earning an MBA at Duke, serving as a company commander and writing a biography.

It started with forgiveness, he said, “Asking (God) to forgive the man who blew himself up, which was hard, but most importantly asking God to forgive me for denying him.”